Speak to A Homeless Person About Your Startup
Yesterday I was at a gathering here in the city and someone mentioned that once in a while they spend some time with homeless people living on the street and talk to them about random things. She said: “ It’s always an amazing experience because I get such a fresh and down-to-earth opinion from them. They usually have thought-provoking ways of seeing things.”
Her experience got me thinking about entrepreneurship and getting different perspectives from different people. Now, I’m not saying get out there and talk to every homeless person on that street (unless you’re comfortable with doing that). Obviously, depending on where you live, that may not be safe.
But, I think that — as an entrepreneur running startup — you should aim to get advice and opinions from as many people as possible; even if those people don’t know a thing about business, entrepreneurship, and your particular company.
The objective here is to tap into as many minds as possible and see what they think about what you are doing. Ask your mom. Ask your teacher. Ask your brother. Ask your girlfriend. Ask your enemy. Ask your mailman. Ask your doctor. Ask your professor.
It doesn’t matter. Just see what they think and attempt to spark their mind about something that may be of value to your business. You’d be surprised how much we miss out on in life — how much information we let slip out of our hands — because we don’t take the time to share our thoughts with certain people.
We need to destroy that notion and get out there and talk to as many people as possible. It’s like painting a picture with a palette of only 8 colors — your picture may come out looking nice, but imagine if you had a palette of 1,000 colors. Various opinions and unique insights from other people are the other colors that you can add to your startup.
Especially seek out people who aren’t jaded in some way or another (as hard as that sounds). People who aren’t too extreme or too passive about a particular matter. Even someone like your younger brother or sister may be good people to ask. Children are known for stimulating creativity in people.
So get out there and start speaking to people about what you are doing. No one is out of bounds! Have fun with it. What do you have to lose?
One Comment
Brett Adams
July 10th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
Good advice. The point of this isn’t that one needs to strike up a conversation with a few homeless people - but rather people from every type of background - even if they aren’t in your target market. For us fellow web entrepreneurs, you would be amazed how much you can learn from people who don’t utilize computers and the internet. And by using their opinions and advice, and then translating that into something that works with your business model, you are all but assuring yourself long term success.
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